


Vignettes

by MetaThePanda



Series: Your Presence Here [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Between Episodes, Gen, Random & Short, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:40:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28362549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetaThePanda/pseuds/MetaThePanda
Summary: A series of short stories in between the chapters of Your Presence Here.
Series: Your Presence Here [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077134
Kudos: 2





	Vignettes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bix/gifts).



Malik waved his single hand dismissively at the unconscious body of the foreigner lying on the floor. "Take him to the cellar chamber for now, both of you. Then send one to fetch young Aristedes while the other watches over him to ensure he breathes, but doesn’t stir. You may return to your patrols in the courtyard once the crowd of innocents has dispersed and Aristedes has reported to me." With that he moved to return to the opposite side of the table, and continue his cartography.

The guards stared at each other a moment, then at the stranger before them. Hashim, the older of the two, gave a small shake of his head at the order, but began to lean down to collect the foreigner’s arms and move him into a dragging position. Osmanek, however, was not satisfied. "Wait a moment, Dai," Osman started. 

Malik paused, his dark gaze quickly landing on the younger of the two men. One eyebrow arched questioningly, and he turned slowly to face Osman again. "Were my instructions unclear?"

"No, Dai. But when you asked us to try this poison on him, I was hoping you’d lend us a ha-" Osman froze mid-sentence, realizing the folly of his words. 

Malik glanced briefly at Hashim, who seemed ready to throw Osman from the parapets himself. But Malik’s attention quickly returned to Osman, who was now staring directly at the floor in front of him. "Very well, if you wish to balk like a novice, I would be happy to treat you as a novice." An irritated sigh escaped his lips, fingers brushing carefully over the desk to retrieve a piece of clean paper. The Dai scrawled a note, letters looping easily into one another, signing at the bottom with his full title. When it was done, he handed the paper to Osman, the ink still fresh and gleaming. 

"These are orders for the surgeons to provide you with a stretcher with which to carry our captive. In exchange, I expect you, Osman, to offer an hour of your service to the head surgeon to repay this favor, as they could be using it to better effect upon the wounded… for which I fully expect you to apologize with every word you speak." With this explained, Malik once again picked up his drafting compass to return to his measurements. When he heard no movement, however, his eyes glanced up to the two men. "Why do you take hesitant steps? Get moving, both of you," Malik warned, sending the men scrambling to collect their charge and heave him down the steps of the mezzanine. When they were out of earshot, Malik finally allowed himself a chuckle at Osman’s unintentional joke, once more grasping his quill pen to enumerate his findings. Were it a decade earlier, he’d still be sore about it, but Malik had long put away such bitterness, particularly at such an unintended slip of the tongue. 

Finally, he was alone again, as if that whole mess had never happened. Perhaps he could truly finish his measurements today, after all. But he found his thoughts drifting to that man even as he attempted to concentrate, with his garishly colored clothes and his still-youthful face that he had attempted to hide with a beard. He looked more a foolish nobleman or newly-minted merchant than an agent of the Templars. Hardly a spy worth his salt, which was puzzling in and of itself. But what was truly inexplicable was the absence of anger, or violence, or even a hint of enmity from that strange foreigner. No, all he had seen behind those eyes was the expected fear, and… something else. Disappointment? Regret? Not quite either. Something more familiar, something which stung in his breast far more than he cared to admit, yet still he could not name it.

He’d recorded no measurements by the time young Ari reached the mezzanine. The sigh that escaped Malik’s lips was tired, this time, as he returned his quill to its inkwell, and set the drafting compass aside. It would have to wait until the morrow, he thought, as he rose to greet the young Greek.

" _Asfaleia kai eirini_ , Aristedes. I trust you have been apprised of the situation. I would not condemn this man to death until we know for certain he works for the Templars, so I need you to listen carefully…"

~~~

"Allah have mercy, this man must weigh three hundred _ratl_!" Osman huffed, taking the first few steps down the cellar stairs slowly, glancing over his shoulder when he could to see where the next step lay.

"Don’t be such a child," Hashim grunted back, holding the bulk of Leonardo’s weight on the stretcher while Osman took his damned sweet time down the stairs. "He’s 75, 80 _ratl_ at most. Keep moving."

Osman took a beat to stare up at Hashim and remark scornfully, "And all of Masyaf is only a thousand to you? The whole of the Levant twenty thousand?"

"Stop arguing and keep moving, _al’kasul_ ," Hashim growled, nudging Osman backward a faltering step with a push of the stretcher. Osman merely grumbled in return and continued his perilous journey down, until his feet finally landed on terra firma. Getting him to the cell was far easier, if only because Hashim provided further encouragement with several quick shoves. But then came the problem. 

"No, it will not fit. We’ll have to lift him from here."

"I’m telling you it will fit! We need to fold his arms more—"

"His top half is too heavy. I cannot hold him for much longer!"

"Just give me a moment, perhaps I can tilt one side upwards to…"

"I’m losing my grip, Osman, by Allah, this is a fool’s errand—"

"All right, all right, I’ll put him down!"

A few moments later they both rested their hands on their knees, staring down at the unconscious form on the stretcher as they caught their breath. After a few minutes, Hashim stooped to grasp the man’s shirt tightly in his fists, dragging him carefully by the shoulders through the bars of the cell and resting him near the south wall. With a heavy sigh, he turned toward Osmanek again, waving his hand toward him in a shooing motion. "Take the stretcher and go find the boy. I’ll watch him until the Dai arrives."

Osman huffed, still clearly winded, "Why should I find Ari? You can go and find him just as easily."

"Because you will need to report to the surgeon right after, won’t you? Or were you going to saddle me with your work at the surgeon’s?" The older man’s eyes narrowed in a half-glare as Osman stood there for a moment more, but seemed satisfied when the younger lad collected the stretcher and trudged up the stairs. Hashim shook his head in disbelief, putting Osman out of his mind for now as he turned his attention to their slumbering prisoner. Slowly he undid the man’s belt containing his satchel, and began to rifle through it. "Let us see what has Dai Malik so interested in you, hmm?" Hashim spoke aloud, knowing full well this man couldn’t hear him. Leonardo, wasn’t it? No matter, he wouldn’t bother remembering this poor sod’s name if he wasn’t going to be around for much longer.

Within the satchel were several things which left Hashim rather perplexed: chalk pencils, a small vial of ink and a matching quill in a metal case, several small containers of pigment, and a handbound leather notebook. Curiously, Hashim undid the leather strap binding the notebook, and took a peek inside. "By Allah!" He gasped, admiring the form of a flower drawn in such intricate detail he felt he might be able to pluck it from the page. The next page was even more breathtaking, of a horse and its rider. While this sketch was much more unfinished, it would be an insult to call it a crude drawing. The horse still showed signs of musculature and bone, and of life, while the rider even in this simple sketch held their weight precisely as a man would on a majestic rearing beast such as this horse. 

"It is as if the hand drew how the eyes would see. So you are a learned man," Hashim commented to no one in particular, his gaze torn from the pages for only a moment to ensure the man still slept. "An artisan, a scribe for a royal court, perhaps. But still you knew our Creed… and that is what confuses me most about you. A shame, one as gifted with the arts as you would cross us." His fingers brushed over the horse’s rider, almost reverently, before he turned to the next page. This was an architectural proof of a water delivery system, one designed to draw barrels a minute from its water source into a holding tank. And even Hashim, dim-witted as he was about such things, found it easy to understand and follow. It was awe-inspiring, as every page thus far had been. And the next, and the next. 

Approaching footsteps withdrew Hashim from his trance, and he hastened to place all the man’s things back into the satchel, leaving the belt beside him for whenever he awoke. He rose then to greet Dai Malik and the young Ari, and to report his findings. Yet, he couldn’t help but steal a glance back at the foreigner, still fast asleep from the poison he’d administered. A part of him hoped that the Dai would spare this man’s life, but he knew that few who entered the dungeons beneath Masyaf ever came back out. At least the man’s work would live on in his memories, Hashim reassured himself. 

"Nothing obvious to link him to our enemy, Dai. Just a scholar’s tools, and a journal of some sort. All it contained were flowers and horses and fountains. They may be a code, but I am not wise enough to interpret them. He refuses to wake."

"Very well. Then we must wait for him to rouse to obtain our answers." Malik glanced down briefly at the young Aristedes, who frowned at how innocuous the report seemed. Seeming puzzled himself, the Dai turned his attention back to Hashim with a polite nod. "You may return to your post, Hashim."

Hashim bowed his head to the Dai and the young novice, hurriedly vaunting up the stairs. The sooner he returned to guard duty, the sooner he could forget the doomed foreigner, and remember only his magnificent drawings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I apologize for the delay in posting; 2020 has been an awful year for the creative process, the pandemic notwithstanding. I hope you are all well.
> 
> Welcome to the first of (hopefully) many vignettes of Your Presence Here. These stories are completely optional reading, but they’re likely going to be more light-hearted and less serious than the full chapters of Your Presence Here. These particular vignettes take place between chapters one and two of Your Presence Here. The guards from chapter one have names now, Hashim the elder guard and Osmanek/Osman the younger guard! They will show up as minor characters like Aristedes in both Your Presence Here and the vignettes. I made these characters to hopefully expand Masyaf and make it feel more lived-in and like a real city, and add to the inclusive nature of the early Assassin ethos. 
> 
> _Why do you take hesitant steps?_ \- the translation of an Arabic idiom, to make hesitant steps, indicates confusion concerning what to say or do in a situation.
> 
>  _Asfaleia kai eirini_ \- the Greek form of "safety and peace".
> 
>  _Ratl_ \- a common measurement in the medieval Arabic world, however each region had a distinct regional variation in what was considered a ratl, the actual weight of the dirham that make up each ratl, and so on. The confusion here between the two lies in the fact that Osmanek’s birthplace ratl is 120 dirham, while Hashim’s birthplace ratl is closer to 480 dirham. While a dirham weighs the same for both of them at approx. 3.125 grams, their standards for ratl are vastly different from each other. Osmanek thinks Hashim is saying Leonardo is about 62 lbs/28 kg, while Hashim thinks Osmanek is saying Leonardo weighs nearly 1000 lbs/450 kg.
> 
>  _Al’kasul_ \- Arabic for idiot; literally "[one] of the foolish''.


End file.
